SENT: Churches Planting Churches

“ALL THE NATIONS You have made will come and bow down before You, Lord, and will honor Your name.” ~ Psalm 86:9 (HCSB)

When church planters move to a city, their primary focus is to engage the city with the Gospel, make disciples, and plant a church. This process involves staying close to people to build relationships, walking alongside new believers, and gathering them to form a local church. Often, the public worship gathering becomes the central focus of new churches.

When Jim and Stephanie Boyd moved from Soldotna, Alaska, to Lynchburg in June 2022, they left behind a church they had planted years earlier. They arrived without knowing how God would use them to launch K12 Collective in Lynchburg.

They began the missionary task of engaging their community with the Gospel—primarily college students. Jim and Stephanie immediately started evangelizing and making disciples among the students they met. Many of their public gatherings took place in living rooms and coffee shops.

Every staff member raised their own support for their role at the church. Jim explained, “This reduces overhead expenses, which allows us to focus more of our financial resources on disciple-making. Each of these leaders receives partnership development training followed by weekly coaching until they are fully funded. Each of these harvest workers is gathering ministry partners to provide monthly support and a prayer covering over their ministry.”

Each staff member uses the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) Missionary Service Corps status to raise support, which also provides official endorsement from NAMB.

Even in these early stages of planting, K12 Collective is sending out missionaries around the world. Sven is being sent through the International Mission Board (IMB) to South Asia. Boyd tells the story of how God allowed Sven to meet another missionary in South Asia who was sent from a church they planted more than two decades ago. “Two people, sent from two different churches we planted 22 years apart, have found each other coincidentally on the mission field. What are the odds?”

K12 Collective is planning to send another missionary to plant a church in Maine through the Send Network. What an amazing picture of churches planting churches! We thank God that He is raising up missionaries to send out to the nations through church planting.